GEOTHERMAL- History

A History of Geothermal Energy in America

energy.govArchaeological evidence shows that the first human use of geothermal resources in North America occurred more than 10,000 years ago with the settlement of Paleo-Indians at hot springs. The springs served as a source of warmth and cleansing, their minerals as a source of healing. While people still soak in shallow pools heated by the earth, engineers are developing technologies that will allow us to probe more than 10 miles below the earth’s surface in search of geothermal energy. We invite you to study the timeline of the recent history of geothermal energy in the United States.

BRIEF GEOTHERMAL HISTORYThe presence of volcanoes, hot springs, and other thermal phenomena must have led our ancestors to surmise that parts of the interior of the Earth were hot. However, it was not until a period between the sixteenth and seventeenth century, when the first mines were excavated to a few hundred metres below ground level, that man deduced, from simple physical sensations, that the Earth’s temperature increased with depth…Read more>>

The first measurements by thermometer were probably performed in 1740 by De Gensanne, in a mine near Belfort, in France (Buffon, 1778). By 1870, modern scientific methods were being used to study the thermal regime of the Earth (Bullard, 1965), but it was not until the twentieth century, and the discovery of the role played by radiogenic heat, that we could fully comprehend such phenomena as heat balance and the Earth’s thermal history…Read more>>

History Of Geothermal EnergyThe first industrial use of geothermal energy began near Pisa, Italy in late 18th century. Steam coming from natural vents (and from drilled holes) was used to extract boric acid from the hot pools that are now known as the Larderello fields.

In 1904, Italian scientist Piero Ginori Conti invented the first geothermal electric power plant in which steam was used to generate the power. With the above experiment, the first geothermal plant in USA started in…Read more>>www.conserve-energy-future.com

Geothermal Energy TimelineThe Geysers is a truly remarkable place.

A million years ago, a plume of molten magma intruded close to the Earth’s surface. The heat from this 1400˚F intrusion recrystallized the overlying rocks, making them hard and brittle, then caused fracturing to create permeability. Subsequent magmatic activity over the next half-million years maintained high temperatures as water seeped down through fractures to form a hot water geothermal reservoir. At about a quarter million years ago, the caprock overlying the ancestral Geysers reservoir fractured, allowing steam eruptions as the high temperature water boiled down to form the current steam reservoir. Continue reading>> http://www.geysers.com/history.aspx